Night of the Fenthakrabi

Very quietly, Jamesen pulled himself out the window. His little brother Wysim was still in their bedroom and looked terrified, as if he were the one about to walk the dark forest path.

“Don’t latch the shutters,” Jamesen whispered.

“But the monsters will get me,” Wysim protested.

“Don’t latch it. I need a way back in,” Jamesen said. He had already gone over this with Wysim after swearing him to secrecy with imaginative threats.

“All right, but I gotta make it look shut,” Wysim said and pulled the shutters back in place.

“Go to bed,” Jamesen whispered through the shutters after making sure his brother had not latched them.

Turning away from his family’s modest thatched-roof cottage, Jamesen scanned the village. A full moon hung over the roofs. The voices of men drinking in the village square drifted down the lane, but otherwise Wa Gira was snug in bed. He dashed toward the rickety stockade and climbed it easily. He was a wiry and strong lad and about to prove himself to the older boys.

Young men this side of the river distinguished themselves by approaching the Wilderness. Although everyone believed the legends about the Wilderness with unwavering zeal, Jamesen had accepted the dare to enter the forbidden. Yancy, Dugger, and Jesh had all said they had done it, and Jamesen meant to do it too.

His thumping heart fired his courage when he dropped to the ground outside the village. No one guarded the fence. The barrier sufficed to keep wild animals out, and he ran across the fields without any worries of being seen and stopped.

The mottled face of the glowing moon seduced the black heart of the night. The magical light ushered Jamesen into the wild lands. The lushness of summer swelled from the fields and pastures. Singing insects and the high fluting calls of night birds added layers of life to the fruitful land.

The Wilderness was always close. Its omnipresent lifeforce menaced frontier enclaves like Wa Gira that only pecked at the vast unknown wilds like squirrels rummaging for nuts in piles of leaves.

Jamesen ran westward across the fields. The forest loomed and he scanned its dark edge that scoffed at the moonlight brightening the open places.

He slowed when he ran beneath the trees. His friends had to be close.

“Come out. Don’t try to spook me,” Jamesen called.

Crickets kept screeching and the whine of an approaching horde of mosquitoes were his only reply. Bracing himself to endure the bugs, Jamesen called out again.

Three howling screams came from three directions, and Jamesen jumped with alarm even though he knew who was there. Yancy, Dugger, and Jesh lunged out from behind trees and grabbed him. Jamesen laughed. They shoved him around a little but not with malice.

“We thought you’d be too scared to come,” Jesh said.

The darkness hid Jamesen’s frown. They were silly to underestimate him. He would prove his daring, even if he was two years younger.

“I want to see it,” Jamesen said.

“See it? If you see it, you’re dead. Hearing it is being close enough,” Yancy said.

This statement pricked Jamesen’s adolescent bravado with a thorn of proper fear. Yancy picked up a lantern he had hidden in some ferns. With the tiny light, he led his friends deeper into the forest. The path disappeared. They picked their way slowly and often tripped on bulging roots. Jesh insisted it was best to stay quiet so they would not attract a hunting predator. Moonlight penetrated the tree canopy in random places, and the erratic shafts of silvery blue highlighted old gnarled trunks.